Balladeer performances are returning to the East End with “all the latest news” after what could be three centuries when modern-day poet Luke Wright takes the stage.
Luke is catching up with what’s occurring in the news when he performs at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club in July, one of three shows on a nationwide tour, when the country opens up with the easing of restrictions.
The father-of-two from Suffolk is a full-time poet who has got through lockdown writing a book on the history of balladeers, The Ballad Seller, which has just been published.
It's about pre-Georgian times when ballad sheets were sold on the streets to spread the news long before the tabloid press and it has been illustrated by modern political cartoonist Martin Rowson.
He also has his third collection of poetry being published, The Feel Good Movie of the Year, which looks at the "frail humanity of a battered post-Brexit Britain” emerging from the pandemic.
The 39-year-old, who began his ballad career in a collective at university, celebrated 20 years as a professional poet in 2019 before lockdown stopped all stage performances.
But he bounces back on July 14 at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club in Pollard Row, off Bethnal Green Road, at 7.30pm. Tickets: £12.
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